Fast Lane - Kristen Ashley Page 0,104

down his in order to tuck my face in his neck.

He fell forward which meant I was on my back and he was on me.

“Lyla,” he whispered in my ear.

“This doesn’t change anything,” I announced.

For a beat, he was still.

Then everything felt good when his body started shaking with laughter.

He lifted his head, framed mine with his hands and looked down at me.

“Baby, you didn’t drive seven hours to hand me a CD,” he pointed out.

“I felt the drama of the gesture would make my point,” I returned.

“Your point was to come and get a dose of your man.” He grinned arrogantly. “Mission accomplished.”

“Preacher—”

“Don’t,” he rasped, resting his forehead to mine. “I’m still inside you, cher. Don’t. Please.”

I closed my mouth.

“Thank you,” he whispered and touched his lips to mine.

I closed my eyes.

He rubbed his nose against mine.

I opened my eyes.

And seeing him, smelling him, feeling him, connected to him again, tears filled them.

“Baby,” he murmured, sliding out and rolling us to our sides.

But he did this clamping me to him with his arms and legs.

“This was a mistake,” I mumbled, staring at his throat.

“How’d you find me?” he asked.

“Loretta,” I told him.

“Sendin’ her flowers tomorrow,” he muttered.

I tipped my head back and he took one arm from around me to cup my head, rubbing the wet on my temple with his thumb.

“I felt rage,” he said.

“Wh-what?” I asked, confused where these words came from.

“Sittin’ there, in the witness box, lookin’ at him. Sittin’ there, doin’ the same at her. Rage. I can guarantee you’ve never felt that, Lyla, and I hope with all that’s me you never do. It’s consuming. It eats you up. It is no exaggeration to say it’s a damned miracle I didn’t fly outta that box and tear them limb from limb.”

I had wanted this for so long.

And now I had it.

Therefore, I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to offer him the chance to give it.

Thus, take it.

So, I slid my hands up his chest and held onto his neck, trying not to do it too tight, whispering, “Preacher.”

“It was not good, cher.”

“Honey,” I breathed.

“It was so not good, I was not good for you. I was not good for the band. Lyla, they killed my brother.”

God.

They killed his brother, he heard it and he spent years making it so they’d pay.

And then he did, and they tore him apart.

Again.

I said nothing, just held on to him tight.

“I had to make you go,” he said. “I knew it was all gonna come to a head and I had to make you go. You had to live your life. You had to figure it out. You were wrapped up in me since you were seventeen and I knew I’d go there. I knew it was all about to go down one way or another and what I was holdin’ back in me would break loose. I knew what bein’ back in Louisiana, seein’ them again would do to me. And I didn’t want you around that. I didn’t want you around that for so many reasons, my head felt like it would explode with all of them. You’d never find you. You’d always be all about me. Until I made it so you weren’t and never would be again.”

Although I understood this, I was not at one with it.

But I’d get into that later.

“Where did you go?” I asked.

“The woods,” he answered. “Where no one was. Where I had to drive for twenty minutes just to get to the town limits. Another ten minutes to hit the grocery store. I cleared trees. I built a cabin.”

I was stunned.

“You built a cabin?”

“Yeah. You buy a book, you read it, it tells you what to do, you do it. First year, I was in a camper with a generator, cuttin’ down trees, movin’ dirt. Next year, foundation, framing. You get the picture.”

“You built a cabin.”

“Yeah.”

“By yourself.”

“The electricity and plumbing were tricky. There’s codes. But I wasn’t on the moon and I got money so hired a coupla guys. Other than that. Yeah.”

“You built a cabin.”

He stopped talking.

“Where?” I asked.

His mouth moved in a weird way.

Oh boy.

“Where, Preacher?” I pushed.

“About two hours from your house.”

I felt my eyes get big and my word was high-pitched. “What?”

“Dumb luck you moved to Phoenix a coupla years later,” he muttered. “Though I didn’t know that at the time.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Nope.”

It was then I stopped talking.

“Looked at maybe thirty patches of land in ten different states. My patch, there’s no view,